


Keep Them For Me

by syriala



Series: Secretly Married IronFalcon [15]
Category: Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Angst, Captain America: Civil War (Movie) Compliant, Dog Tags, Established Relationship, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Secret Marriage
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-30
Updated: 2016-12-30
Packaged: 2018-09-12 21:54:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,969
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9092197
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/syriala/pseuds/syriala
Summary: Written for this prompt on Tumblr: What about Sam’s dog tags? I have this image of Tony holding on to them when Sam is imprisoned or in Wakanda… And a separate idea: how about someone discovering/suspecting their relationship because they find the dog tags either in Tony’s workshop or on his floor?





	

**Author's Note:**

> So this is, of course, some universe of secretly married IronFalcon and it will play during and after Civil War. (What do you mean separate ideas, clearly they belong together). I allowed myself to throw in a little headcanon ir0nshield and I came up with as well.

Sam comes to find him shortly after Steve left.

Tony had locked himself into the workshop, he is already trying to find out where they would have to ratify the Accords so that everyone would feel comfortable signing them, and he doesn’t want to be disturbed. This is important after all.

But Sam still finds him, and of course he still has access, Tony would never deny him that, but even after Sam says “Tony” it takes him a few seconds to respond, he’s so deep into the political jargon.

When he finally does turn around, not without a helpful visual reminder from Friday, something is immediately slung over his head. Normally he would startle, but this is Sam, and he is safe and home and whatever he just did Tony is pretty sure it won’t hurt him.

Sam is holding on to the whatever it was, and now Tony realizes that it’s some kind of necklace.

“I want you to have them,” Sam says seriously and Tony finally looks down to properly identify it.

It is a necklace, and it has Sam’s dog tags on them.

“Sam, what are you doing?” Tony asks and Sam pulls him in with the grip he still has on the tags and kisses Tony.

“This is not going to end well,” he mumbles against Tony’s lips and Tony had tried so hard not to think about that, what it could mean for their marriage if they couldn’t agree on this, but obviously Sam had.

“We are already on different sides in this and if Bucky shows up,” he slightly shakes his head. “You know Steve would do anything for him. He will never comply with the Accords. Not when it’s about Bucky.”

“And you can’t accept them either,” Tony mumbles and drops his head to his husband’s shoulder.

“Not with how they are, no,” Sam agrees, and it’s not a surprise, it really isn’t, Tony had known that, but it still stings.

“I don’t want us to be on different sides,” he says and Sam kisses his head.

“Neither do I. But you cannot plead against this, and I cannot be for it.” Now Sam pushes him up again, to look Tony into the eye. “But no matter what happens, you always have to remember that I love you, and that this will not ruin anything between us, I won’t let it. And these,” he gently taps against the tags on Tony’s chest, “are here to remind you of that.”

Tony looks down at the tags, and he covers them with his hand. “You should at least keep Riley’s,” he says and Sam shakes his head.

“No. That one might even be more important than mine and I want you to have it, to keep it safe. To help you remember that I love you, no matter what happens in the next weeks or months.”

“I love you, too,” Tony says but he can already feel the doubt creeping in. “Could you even still sleep next to me, if we don’t agree on this?” he asks even though he is scared of the answer.

“Could you?” Sam questions him and Tony scoffs.

“Of course I could.”

“And so can I,” Sam softly tells him and then kisses him again.

This time Tony deepens the kiss, desperation and fear of what is to come bleeding into it, but Sam doesn’t pull back, he keeps Tony close and meets him with the same feelings and maybe, just maybe this will turn out alright.

~*~*~

It doesn’t turn out alright.

Sam, Steve and Bucky are captured in Bucharest and while only Bucky is in restraints, Tony knows that is only a semantic.  They are all three prisoners of Ross right now.

Ross, who takes all their stuff, and who keeps Bucky in a fucking glass cubicle and Tony doesn’t even want to know how he got something this specific so fast.

Tony tries to get Steve to sign the Accords, he even got the damn pens from his dad, and he is so close, so close, Steve already has one pen in his hands and then Tony has to go and fuck it up all over again, simply because he can’t keep his mouth shut.

When Steve starts to yell at him, he instinctively grabs for the dog tags, which are still resting on his chest, ever since Sam had given them to him.

And Tony clings to them, it’s the only thing grounding him these days, but it’s not enough, it’s never enough, not even Sam’s love can solve this mess and Tony just wants to curl up and cry.

Steve doesn’t sign, of course he doesn’t, and in the next second all hell is breaking lose, with the Winter Soldier running around and killing people and Tony lost sight of Sam pretty much the second it all started and he is pretty sure he is going to need both hands for this, but he simply cannot seem to get his left hand to let go of the tags.

He does, though, when he fights the Winter Soldier, when he goes out there with nothing but a gauntlet and some cocky attitude, and Tony is afraid. Afraid that Bucky will kill him now, that it will all end right then and there, that Sam is already dead, that this will only make things worse.

And he was right with the last one, because shortly after everything dies down, Ross finds him. It hasn’t even been long enough for Tony to feel his arm again, and Ross is already there, threatening the lives of his friends, of his husband, even though Tony hopes to god that Ross doesn’t know the last part.

But when he leaves and shouts “Barnes. Rogers. Wilson.” Tony knows that he figured it out, that Ross now also holds the life of his husband over his head and Tony is so tired.

But he does what he has to, he gets a team together and he meets Cap and the others at the airport, hoping that he can talk some sense into them, that he can make them see reason, but it all crashes and burns around him only seconds after it started and suddenly they are in full fight.

And Sam is there, he is right there, running from Tony and then attacking him, but it can only barely be called that. He is pulling his punches where he can and Tony is doing the same and while ‘I love you’ is a constant mantra in Tony’s head, Sam has no qualms about mumbling it, so that Tony can see and the dog tags have never been this heavy before.

He’s not sure they can come back from this.

Then they are following Bucky and Steve and Sam is following them, and when Rhodey gives the order to Vision, to turn Sam into a glider, Tony swears his heart stops right in his chest, even though he knows it’s the best solution to this.

But Sam drops out of the way and the beam hits Rhodey and Tony can’t even feel anything anymore.

~*~*~

When Tony visits them in prison, in goddamn prison, he doesn’t even know if Sam wants to see him.

But Sam immediately turns to him, asks “How’s Rhodes?” and then he taps lightly on the glass right where the tags rest on Tony’s chest.

And Tony can’t help it, his hand immediately goes up to them, clutches around them and Sam gives him a small smile, mouths ‘I love you’ again, and Tony is pretty sure he will never deserve him.

Sam tells him where Steve and Bucky are headed, of course he does, he obviously still trusts him, even after all the shit Tony has pulled, and Tony doesn’t want to leave Sam behind at this place, if he leaves, Sam goes under water again and he belongs into the sky, free like the bird whose name he’s wearing, but he has to, they both know it, and Sam says it one more time to him, ‘I love you’, right there for everyone to hear who listens, and then Tony has to go.

~*~*~

Steve has made sure that Tony is wearing Sam’s dog tags even when the chain rests on the table next to him.

Tony carefully rubs a hand over his still sore chest, over the deep blue bruise he still has on his chest, and sometimes he is pretty sure he can identify Sam’s and Riley’s serial number in his skin.

Friday has informed him that it isn’t quite that bad, but Tony doesn’t believe her.

He hastily pulls his hand away when Sam enters his room, why T’Challa agreed to hide Tony as well he will never know, but Sam’s eyes immediately fall onto Tony’s chest and then, when he can’t find his tags there, to the table.

“Why are you not wearing them,” he asks and he actually sounds hurt, like Tony would take them off after everything they went through, like he wouldn’t want them anymore, now that it was over.

“I can’t,” he mumbles, and he doesn’t know how much Steve told Sam before he came here, how honest he was, but he also doesn’t know if he can admit to Sam that wearing the dog tags hurts, that even that light a weight hurts his chest and bruises and he feels like he cannot breathe.

“Okay, help me out here,” Sam says and picks his tags up, “but this seems pretty symbolic. Is this your way of telling me that you can’t do this, do us, anymore?”

Instead of an answer Tony tugs of his shirt, baring every injury to Sam and Sam nearly drops the tags.

“No, it’s not,” Tony still clarifies, hoping that Sam will get it, without him having to say anything else and it seems like he’s in luck today.

“They hurt you,” he mumbles and his fingers ghost over the shape on Tony’s chest. “ _They_  hurt you,” he repeats, but his inflection makes it clear that he’s talking about Steve and Bucky now.

Tony only nods at him, unable to find the words to tell Sam how they hurt him, what had happened in Siberia, but going by the furious look on his face, Sam already knows.

“They didn’t mention this,” he nearly growls and Tony shrugs.

He had wondered, how much Steve and Bucky would say while he was still half a world away, how much they would admit to, but obviously it hadn’t been that much at all.

“I feel like I might need your version of the events,” Sam tells him and Tony grabs for the tags again. He can already feel himself starting to shake, and holding them helps keeping his hands steady.

Sam is observant, as always, and he immediately takes Tony’s hand in his. “Come to bed with me?” he asks and Tony is now shaking so hard he isn’t even sure if Sam can tell that he is nodding at him.

When they are curled up in bed, Tony securely in Sam’s arms, and warm and safe and _home_ , he slowly starts to tell Sam what had happened, what he had learned in Siberia and how everything just imploded on him.

Sam holds him through it, not once interrupting him or making to move away and when Tony is done, when he can’t keep the tears at bay for longer, Sam pushes him on his back and peppers his face with kisses and murmurs love to him.

~*~*~

Things have gone mostly back to normal. The Avengers are taking on missions again, sometimes, Barnes got a new arm and thanks to Tony’s glasses a head that is hopefully trigger free, and Tony can even be in a room with Steve again without flinching. Mostly.

Sam is usually by his side these days, even though their marriage is still a secret, but it does a lot to ground Tony and make him feel safe.

The dog tags are still in his possession, Sam had refused them when he tried to give them back, and Tony wears them more often than not. The only time he never wears them is when he is building something new, because he is afraid of damaging them.

So whenever he is in the workshop T’Challa so generously gave him, the tags rest on a small table next to his tablet and the little sack that holds his wedding ring.

As they are right now, when Steve comes to see him. And somehow his eyes immediately fall right on them.

He stops dead in his tracks and then he crosses the room in two large steps, picking the dog tags up and then accusingly turning to Tony.

“Why do you have them?” he asks and his voice is as cold as ice and Tony tries to remember that he is doing better with Steve these days, that he is not in danger of being hit and hurt again, but when Steve looks at him like that, voice like steel, it’s hard to remember.

“I,” Tony starts and then he has to swallow because his voice breaks around the words and he doesn’t even know what to say anyway.

“They got taken from Sam, why do you have them?” Steve asks him, anger clearly audible in his voice and Tony’s mind just blanks out.

He knows he should come up with something, give Steve a reason, even if it’s the truth, but his voice is not working and his mind is frozen and so he can do nothing but stare at Steve.

“These mean everything to Sam, _everything_ , one of them belongs to Riley and you have no right to keep them from him. How dare you?” Steve wants to know and his voice is dangerously low as he stalks up to Tony.

“But right, you wouldn’t even know who Riley was, why give something back that holds no meaning to you, god, Tony, is everything still a game to you?” Steve questions and he is now standing right in front of Tony, who still can’t say anything, who is still frozen in place, even though he wants to scream ‘Of course I know who Riley is, I hold Sam through every anniversary of his death, I visited his grave with him’ but nothing makes it past his lips.

In the end it’s Sam himself who saves him.

He barges in, door nearly banging onto the wall with the force Sam used to throw it open, and he is at Tony’s side in a second, putting one steadying arm around his shoulder and simultaneously taking the tags from Steve.

Steve stares at him, nothing but a confused ‘Sam’ making it out of his mouth but Sam pays him no mind, he turns to Tony and gently, carefully, puts the tags on Tony again, resting against his chest, like they should be.

Tony feels steadier just for the weight of them.

That feeling only intensifies when Sam guides his hand up to curl around them and Tony feels like it’s only then that he can take a deep breath.

Sam looks at him for a few seconds before he leans in, softly kisses him and says ‘I love you’, like he had so often in the last weeks.

“I love you,” Tony whispers back and he had forgotten about Steve for a second but now he makes a surprised noise and the illusion shatters.

“What are you doing?” Steve asks Sam who turns to Steve, but who keeps Tony close by his side, not letting go of him for a second.

“I am comforting my husband,” Sam matter-of-factly says and pulls a chain up from under his shirt.

His wedding ring is gleaming golden at the end of it and Tony’s eyes immediately fall to his still on the table.

Steve is staring at them, obviously unable to form words, and so Sam just reaches past him, takes the pouch and takes Tony’s hand.

It takes less than ten seconds for Sam to slide the ring over Tony’s finger and Tony sighs when it finally settles where it belongs.

“I gave the tags to Tony just like I gave him this ring and you have no right to threaten him over it,” Sam says then to Steve who is still staring at them.

“I didn’t know you were married,” he finally settles on and Sam shrugs.

“There are a lot of things you don’t know about me,” he tells him and Tony could swear that Steve actually loses a bit of colour over that.

It seems like Steve isn’t very comfortable with secrets. Tony would laugh if he wouldn’t feel like crying.

“Now if you would excuse us,” Sam says and he doesn’t even wait for an answer, he just turns around to save and close Tony’s still open holograms and then he leads him out of the room.

“You didn’t have to tell him,” is the first thing that makes it over Tony’s lips, and Sam pulls him into his side again.

“No, I didn’t have. But I wanted to. It was time.”

“Thank you,” Tony says and hides his face into Sam’s shoulder, even though it makes it hard to walk. He trusts Sam to keep him safe.

“Not for that,” Sam gives back and kisses Tony’s head. “Never for that.”

When they reach Tony’s room, their room now hopefully, they quickly strip down and crawl under the sheets.

It’s still afternoon and Tony isn’t particularly tired but when Sam links their hands, ring resting next to ring, keeps the tags safe on Tony’s chest and murmurs sweet things at him, Tony feels warm and heavy and secure. He is out like a light in seconds.

**Author's Note:**

> This story also has a [post on Tumblr](http://bloody-bee-tea.tumblr.com/post/152303877236/ironfalcon-prompt-what-about-sams-dog-tags-i)
> 
> You can always find me on my [tumblr](http://bloody-bee-tea.tumblr.com/)


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